Ron Woldoff - SAT For Dummies

Again in the fall of your senior year: The SAT strikes again, but this time you’re ready, and you should do well enough to use these scores for your application. You also have the chance for a few tries. If you’re an early-decision candidate, you should take the test in October or November.

Finally, in the winter of your senior year: You have one more chance to get it right, or if you did get it right, you have one more chance to get that scholarship. By now you’re a pro, so success should be right in your hands. There may be some juniors in the room with you.

Everyone takes the SAT on Saturday except for those who can’t for religious reasons. If you fall into that category, your SAT may be on a Sunday or a Wednesday following a Saturday SAT day. Get a letter from your religious leader on letterhead and mail it in with your registration form.

Register early to select a test site. When you register, you may request a test site, but if it’s filled, you get an alternate. So don’t delay — send in the form or register online as soon as you know when and where you want to take the exam. In these COVID-19 days, some exams are experimenting with home-based testing, so this may be an SAT option by the time it’s your turn. Otherwise, you’ll probably want to test at your high school, if possible, where the campus setting is familiar to you.

Like many products and services, the SAT stresses fairness and equal access for all students, including those with special needs. Even if you don’t think you belong in this category, skim this section. You may discover an option that will help you “show what you know” when it matters most.

If you have a learning disability, you may be allowed to take the SAT under special conditions. The first step is to get an Eligibility Form from your school counselor. (Homeschoolers, call the local high school.) You may also want to ask your college counseling or guidance office for a copy of the College Board Services for Students with Disabilities Brochure . If your school doesn’t have one, contact the College Board directly or check the testing agency’s website ( www.collegeboard.org/students-with-disabilities ).

Once you are certified for accommodations on any College Board test (an AP, an SAT Subject Test, or the PSAT/NMSQT), you’re certified for all the College Board tests, unless your need arises from something that is temporary. If you fall into that category, see the next section for more information.

File the form well in advance of the time you expect to take the test. If the College Board grants you the accommodation, you’ll be eligible for extra time on the SAT, which could mean an extra 50 percent of time for each test. So if a regular test-taker has 50 minutes to write the essay, for example, an extended-timer gets 75 minutes.

At no additional charge, the SAT also provides wheelchair accessibility, large-print tests, and other accommodations for students who need them. Be sure to submit your Eligibility Form early so that the College Board can request documentation and get things ready for you. You can send paper documentation or file an Eligibility Form online. Check out www.collegeboard.org/students-with-disabilities for details.

If a physical issue (a broken arm, for example,) occurs shortly before your scheduled SAT and you can’t easily take the exam at a later date, call the College Board Customer Service, explain the situation, and have your physician fill out the forms requesting whatever accommodation you need.

Questions about special needs? Your high school’s counselor or principal can help, or you can check the preceding link or email the College Board ( ssd@info.collegeboard.org ).

If you need financial help, you can apply for a fee waiver, available to low-income high-school juniors and seniors who live in the United States, Puerto Rico, and other American territories. (United States citizens living in other countries may also be eligible for fee waivers.) The College Board also gives you four extra score reports for free, along with four request forms for college application fee waivers. The College Board does what it can.

If you’re worried about paying for school later on, there are loans, grants, scholarships, and other programs to help you achieve success in college and hopefully your career. There are many, many opportunities and places to look, so talk to your school counselor. That’s what the counselor is for!

You can also check with your school counselor for fee-waiver applications. (As with everything SAT, if you’re a homeschooler, call the local high school for a form.) And be careful to avoid additional fees when you can. You run into extra charges for late or changed registration and for some extras — super-speedy scores, an analysis of your performance, and the like. (See the section “ Scoring on the SAT” later in this chapter for more information on score-reporting options.)

This is an opportunity for you to stand out among your high-school peers and represent with honors the country where you are a national! A high score on this exam is certainly within your reach, even if English is not your first language, if you know what to do and practice your skills.

For the SAT Reading Test, you may get stuck on some of the academic vocabulary. To work on this, as you practice SAT reading, underline and look up any word you don’t know. (More on this in Chapter 3, because every student gets stuck on this, even English-only speakers.) After a while, you’ll know enough of the words.

For the SAT Writing and Language Test, you have probably studied the mechanics of English more than your English-born counterparts, so you may have a better academic understanding of sentence structure and verb form than they do. I have observed many, many times in a class with both English-only and non-native English speakers, that after a refresher of the basics of this test, the non-native English speakers often do much better than the English-only speakers!

For the SAT Math Tests, the math doesn’t change from language to language, so if you can crack the basic language used to put forth the problem, you should do just fine. There may be some fine differences (for example, 2,345.67 in one language appears as 2.345,67 in another), but the basics are the same, and these differences are easy to master. Just be sure to practice using SAT materials.

Two things that you can do right now:

First, start reading English books. Pick movies or novels that you love in your own language and read the English versions. You’ll be into the story, and you’ll know the gist of events well enough to pick up the English style of writing. Most importantly, you’ll learn the placement of grammar and the style of expressive writing.

Next, see if there’s an SAT Subject Test that tests skills in your native language! This test should be easy for you, and you’ll score far better than your primary-English-speaking counterparts. Include your top-scoring Subject Test score with your application and show the schools how naturally strong you are in a topic (your native language) that so many others struggle with. At the time of this writing, the SAT offers Subject Tests in Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, and even Latin, where you could do well if you speak a number of Latin-based languages. The list changes, so check and see: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat-subject-tests/subjects/languages . The College Board page even tells you, “Show your mastery of (this language).”